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Does anybody think that San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose is not one metro area? And while I can see why they removed Greeley from the Denver MSA, I donít get why they removed Boulder. I mean Boulder is even part of the Denver cultural tax (stadiums etc). Lawrence is not even a part of the Kansas City CSA while Akron is part of Clevelandís. I mean at least be consistent on this CSA stuff. I just think it should go away.

MSA should equal continuous urban development.

The Census Bureau defines the MSAs and CSAs for official counts and rankings and such. While I don't know the complete details on their methodology, I know they have some sort of system. Does their system make any sense? That I am not qualified to comment on. But for whatever reason, they define the Bay Area as the San Francisco MSA, the San Jose MSA, and the Oakland (maybe it's Oakland-Freemont) MSA. It should just be the SF-SJ-Oakland MSA if you ask me.

I also agree with you that Greeley should not be part of the Denver MSA. Weld County was also included in the Denver MSA following the 2000 census, but like Boulder County, it was dropped from the MSA and added to the CSA. It's far enough away from the northernmost Denver suburbs, so I can see why that decision was made. I still don't get Boulder though.

Does anybody think that San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose is not one metro area? .

I've always seen them more or less as one entity. Locals and others will bicker and banter about how they are divided into separate MSA's or their own principle cities or a large CSA, lable it how you will. Simply put, historically they have all grown up and have contiguous urban devlopment around "The Bay" with San Francisco as it's primary hub, as it's internationally known. San Jose and the valley, Oakland, and Berkeley may be remarkable cities in their right, but they are still all second fiddle to San Francisco, even if San Jose's city limits sprawl way out to contain 1,000,000 + people.

The Census Bureau defines the MSAs and CSAs for official counts and rankings and such. While I don't know the complete details on their methodology, I know they have some sort of system. Does their system make any sense? That I am not qualified to comment on. But for whatever reason, they define the Bay Area as the San Francisco MSA, the San Jose MSA, and the Oakland (maybe it's Oakland-Freemont) MSA. It should just be the SF-SJ-Oakland MSA if you ask me.

The designations are based upon commuter frequency to other MSAs, counties, core MSA areas etc. It's an all or nothing system where if X% commute to a given area from an outlying area, then that area is included, but if X-1% commute, it is excluded. There is no particularly good answer as to whether it makes sense.

For an urban area that is surrounded by open fields, it's a lot easier. For urban areas that bleed into one another, it is not. A given neighborhood in Palo Alto, Kenosha WI, or in the middle of Maryland for example may be X%/Y% SF/San Jose, Chicago/Milwaukee, or DC/Baltimore, but the entire neighborhood goes one way or the other. The fact that entire counties are used in MSA designations makes it even more dramatic. The northern part of San Mateo county may overwhelmingly commute to SF while the souther portion may overwhelmingly commute to SJ, but the entire county folds into one MSA or the other.

Does anybody think that San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose is not one metro area? And while I can see why they removed Greeley from the Denver MSA, I don’t get why they removed Boulder. I mean Boulder is even part of the Denver cultural tax (stadiums etc). Lawrence is not even a part of the Kansas City CSA while Akron is part of Cleveland’s. I mean at least be consistent on this CSA stuff. I just think it should go away.

The MSA is the compilation of counties that the urbanized area touches. The CSA has more to do with commuting patterns and relationships between cities and is essentially another ring of counties beyond the MSA. CSA's should rarely be used then to compare city populations.

Does anybody think that San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose is not one metro area? And while I can see why they removed Greeley from the Denver MSA, I donít get why they removed Boulder. I mean Boulder is even part of the Denver cultural tax (stadiums etc). Lawrence is not even a part of the Kansas City CSA while Akron is part of Clevelandís. I mean at least be consistent on this CSA stuff. I just think it should go away.

You're right, it's not 1 metro. Actually our MSA cheats us out of anything along I-4 north of the St. John's River across the Volusia/Seminole county line since it would have to include the entire population of the county if we included Volusia suburbs like Debary and Deltona. Our new commuter rail is going as far as Deland which is less than 20 minutes from Daytona Beach and future expansion to the beach has been considered. So while I admit the obvious flaws of MSA including either largely rural, non-metro parts of surrounding big counties and or way too many tiny little counties, the CSA's job is to combine two nearby metro areas that function interdependently of one another but are so close that one day they could merge.

I compiled something similar on another thread, except I looked at metro GDP per working age population (18 to 64). Certain MSAs are really closely linked from an economic perspective, so I combined them: Riverside-LA, Raleigh-Durham, and the Bay Area. I kept Baltimore and DC separate because they are fundamentally very different places economically. Riverside would rate at the bottom, but the MSA is more or less a service/light manufacturing/distribution base for the Greater LA region. Highest GDP per working age capita of the 50 largest metros:

The ones at the bottom of the list that really surprise me are San Antonio and Providence. The big surprises toward the top for me are Salt Lake City and Indianapolis. Charlotte felt right due to all the banking and New Orleans makes sense considering all of the reconstruction acitivity and oil/gas industry ties. Austin seems a bit low too. There's probably a big economic divide between tech/new economy Austin and the sizable recent immigrant pool.

Thanks for the info. Its fun to tool around with stats to uncover things we might not have thought of before.

I made this chart a while back measuring per employed person economic output:

No way does Denver stack up against Boston, Miami, Philly, etc. Those cities/metros are far more urbane and far more cosmopolitan, and far more vibrant, with better and more amenities.

That's not to say Denver is bad. It is very respectable for a metro of it's size and is fully loaded as far as sports venues go. But I would not put it above similar sized metros like San Diego or Seattle. It's basically comparable to Minneapolis.

No way does Denver stack up against Boston, Miami, Philly, etc. Those cities/metros are far more urbane and far more cosmopolitan, and far more vibrant, with better and more amenities.

That's not to say Denver is bad. It is very respectable for a metro of it's size and is fully loaded as far as sports venues go. But I would not put it above similar sized metros like San Diego or Seattle. It's basically comparable to Minneapolis.

As has been said many times, Denver gives off the illusion of simply because it's the largest major metro area in the entire mountain time zone. It's influence is very far reaching. That said it's CBD and downtown is decent and certainly better than many of similar sized cities and metros.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stars&StripesForever

I've been to Denver, and it looks incredibly small. It looks similar to Jacksonville, Florida in size. Well, maybe a little larger. I'd say that it's on the order of Nashville, Memphis, or Charlotte in size.

And Denver is a much higher calibur city than all of them. Jacksonville? Pffft!!!!

As has been said many times, Denver gives off the illusion of simply because it's the largest major metro area in the entire mountain time zone. It's influence is very far reaching. That said it's CBD and downtown is decent and certainly better than many of similar sized cities and metros.

That strikes me as very simplistic way of looking at things. Far reaching does not really mean much when the area outside of the metro is sparsely populated, . It's not LA, where the city it self has a reach 100 miles away where it is still insanely populated.

Look at things like art venues. How many visitors a year? How many exhibits? How many museums? Look that the forms of public transit. What type of transit? How many riders?

How many animals in the zoo? How many visitors?

How much annual air traiffic? GDP? How much density? How much nightlife?

As I said before Denver is respectable for a city of it's size, but it does not stack up to larger metros twice it's size- Like Maimi, Philly, or Boston. That is just absolutely laughable.

The MSA is the compilation of counties that the urbanized area touches. The CSA has more to do with commuting patterns and relationships between cities and is essentially another ring of counties beyond the MSA. CSA's should rarely be used then to compare city populations.

I'm not entirely sure if that is true. The division between San Mateo County (San Francisco MSA) and Santa Clara County (San Jose MSA) is quite urbanized, yet the two fall in different MSAs. I roughly traced the boundary between the "two" metropolitan areas HERE.

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